New Transit Options for a Greater Austin

Project Connect is a plan designed to create a system of high-capacity transit options that will connect people, places and opportunities in an affordable, efficient and sustainable way. High-capacity transit travels the entire trip, or a portion of its trip, on a dedicated lane or guideway.

The goals of Project Connect are to identify and evaluate potential transit projects over the next two years. Capital Metro will work with local agencies, stakeholders and the public to identify high-capacity transit solutions that will offer options for travel
into, out of and around Central Austin. Central Texas has seen many transportation studies done in recent years, by both public and private organizations. Project Connect isn’t another new beginning. We will take those ideas and — together with the people of the Austin area — decide which projects will move us all forward.

Why Project Connect?

Project Needs

Explosive Growth

Better Transportation Choices

Affordability

Regional Connectivity

Central Texas is slowing down and traffic congestion threatens our economy, the environment and the very quality of our lives. There is not enough time, money or space to build our way out of this problem by adding and expanding roads. No city has ever built its way out of congestion, and so it is time for a paradigm shift in the way we think about mobility. The goal of our transportation system cannot be to move more cars through the roadway. It must be to move more people, more efficiently.

Project Goals

Customer Experience

Reliability

Sustainability

Land Use and Policy

Implementation and Operations

The
2012 and
2013 INRIX Traffic Scorecard Annual Reports found that Austin's traffic congestion problem was bad and only getting worse. According to those reports, the increase in time wasted in traffic throughout our region ranked fourth among U.S. metro areas — worse than Houston and New York City! There’s no single solution to the region’s growing traffic congestion, so we need an "all of the above" strategy that includes road and transit improvements to add capacity and give people options.

The
Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan and the
CAMPO 2040 Regional Transportation Plan include policies and strategies for compact growth in activity centers. (These are areas with high concentrations of jobs, housing, retailers and other services. Some examples are the Mueller neighborhood, The Domain and the redeveloped Highland Mall.) The plans also envision corridors supported by transit, as well as opportunities for bicycling and walking.

What is High-Capacity Transit?

Transit that includes these features:

Dedicated lanes or guideways with traffic signal priority when running in mixed traffic

High frequency (every 15 minutes or less)

Stations that are a significant part of the surrounding environment and that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act